Spatial analysis of habitat loss for the endangered marine otter Lontra felina (Molina, 1782) in Peru

Urban development in coastal cities is highly threatening for marine coastal wildlife, especially endangered species like the marine otter Lontra felina, whose habitat is restricted to coastal rocky areas along the coast of Peru and Chile. In this work, we determine the habitat loss through the use of remote sensors along the coast of Lima, the capital of Peru with a high number of inhabitants and a nearly uncontrolled urban growth. We evaluated three localities: Punta Corrientes, Pucusana, and Ancón using satellite images for two different years: 2016 vs. 2023. The analysis of potential habitat and habitat loss followed the CORINE Land Cover technical guide adapted to Peru. Two algorithms for land classification were tested, SVM and Random Forest. Both had Kappa values over 0.60; however, SVM had the best precision on pixel classification. Among the categories analyzed, “rocky outcrops” showed a reduction in all the three areas but in Ancón and Pucusana there was over 20% of loss. On the contrary, the category “continuous urban fabric” increased over 23% in Ancón and 13.55% in Pucusana. The change in land cover and use was statistically significant in Ancón (p < 0.005; χ2 = 8.0302, df = 3). The loss of “rocky outcrops” has a statistically significant change for all the localities (p < 0.005; χ2 = 6.229, df = 2). Our results provide evidence that the coastline is changing in Ancón and Pucusana. The physical reduction of coastline is critical for marine otters, since their activity is limited to the rocky shoreline, both marine and terrestrial. Marine otters inhabit all of the three locations, however, the main modification occurs in Ancón and Pucusana; the loss of the available habitat would involve both habitat loss and reduction of habitat quality.